College of Business, Law & Governance

Laurie Murphy grew up in London Ontario Canada and completed a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Waterloo in Recreation and Leisure Studies. She then spent two years at North Carolina State University completing and Master’s Degree in Recreation and Leisure and as a research assistant on a major project for the North Carolina State Division of Travel and Tourism where more than 12,000 visitors to the state were surveyed.

While backpacking in Australia Laurie was offered a lecturing position at JCU which she took up in 1991 and she completed her PhD at JCU on Backpackers and their travel decisions in 1997.

Laurie serves on the Tourism and Event Strategic Advisory Committee at Townsville Enterprise.

Research

Understanding and improving tourism’s contribution to regional Australia: Her early work on backpackers focused on understanding their travel decision making processes.

Work in the field of destination branding has focused on its application to regional destinations and whether traditional brand personality concepts translate from consumer goods to tourism destinations.

Tourism and its contribution to regional communities is at the core of another ongoing research program focusing on Tourist Shopping Villages. This research examines tourist shopping villages in order to understand how their performance can be enhanced for multiple stakeholders in the community and considers the tourist experiences. The shopping villages research highlighted the important linkages between tourism and other regional industries. This has evolved into the more recent research examining the links between tourism and community well-being in more detail in order to identify the ways in which tourism can best make a positive contribution to tropical communities.

These topics have now expanded to the Quality of Life Index with the aim of developing measures of community well-being, and then presenting profiles for tropical regions in NQ. in the public arena .

Laurie is a key member of a team of researchers investigating fly-in, fly-out workers, with a particular interest on the impacts on families and local communities, including tourism businesses.

Teaching

Laurie is the Work Integrated Learning Co-ordinator for the School of Business and is responsible for establishing industry partnerships to facilitate professional internship and industry project opportunities for students.

Experience

1991 to present - Associate Professor,
James Cook University
(Townsville)

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Tourism Knowledge Cluster

Indicative Funding

$10,800

Summary

The aim of the Knowledge Cluster is to form a co-operative data collection and sharing network comprised of stakeholders in the region, including a range of tourism operators working in partnership with the College of Business, Law and Governance at James Co o k University and facilitated by Townsville Enterprise (TEL) as a key agent for knowledge transfer and dissemination to its members. The prime focus of the network will be the development and implementation of an online visitor survey which will provide destination stakeholders with real-time access to data on the profile, preferences and satisfaction of visitors to the region. In addition, market intelligence reports which provide data insights will be disseminated by TEL via its membership base, and two tourism futures workshops - which present detailed data analysis and expert knowledge of JCU tourism academics on global tourism trends - will ensure that the visitor data collected is transferred into knowledge which can facilitate tourism product innovation in the region.

The role of governance in building political, social and human capitals for sustainable tourism development in the Mekong River Delta
(PhD , Primary Advisor/AM)

Examining Criminal Responsibility through 'Command Responsibility', 'Superior Orders' and the 'Doctrine of Military Necessity' as applied at the Allied Military War Crimes Trials of the Pacific War 1945-1951
(PhD , Advisor Mentor)

Laurie Murphy grew up in London Ontario Canada and completed a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Waterloo in Recreation and Leisure Studies. She then spent two years at North Carolina State University completing and Master’s Degree in Recreation and Leisure and as a research assistant on a major project for the North Carolina State Division of Travel and Tourism where more than 12,000 visitors to the state were surveyed.